re: After Christian Pulisic, who is the most important player to the USMNT?

Bruce arena

Has to go on tv today and demand refs red card people striking pulisic. He is incredible and the only guy on team of transcendent capacity.
Last wc qualifying the faero islands had one good player. Faeroes had won a couple. A euro team that needed the win in last game of group to qualify just injured him.

Android

Ask and ye shall receive.

The "I only watch USMNT games" crowd are obnoxiously harsh on Michael Bradley. He's been our best player not named Christian Pulisic this year.

Take last night for example. He should have been overrun in the midfield last night. Yet, aside from a brief period after the second goal when Panama tried to overload the midfield with a substitute, he never looked hassled by the numbers disadvantage. With our defensive frailties, Michael Bradley is pivotal in stopping the ball and shielding our defenders.

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"I only watch USMNT games"

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Yea, I work for the MLS so I would actually bet money that I have watched Michael Bradley more than any other poster on this entire board

Last night, Panama came out in an AWFUL formation. We were flying up and down the flanks all night, and Pulisic and Wood repeatedly were making 40-50 yard runs with the ball because of how spread out Panama was. Bradley had no partner in the midfield, but he didn't need one because of the awful tactics by Panama. Even if they were sending numbers forward, their spacing and skill were so atrocious most the time it did not matter.

He controls the game well enough, but he consistently has careless giveaways. Two separate occasions Bradley gave the ball away in our half on careless passes that were unnecessary giveaways. One ended up get stolen right back, and the other ended in a very errant shot.

My point is that Bradley has been doing this for years now...there are moments he is controlling and being a great holding mid, there are other times he has just ridiculously careless turnovers that lead to very good chances. Not to hold it against him, but when you do that against teams not named Panama or Honduras, you will get wrecked..For example, Portugal in the World Cup.

I understand your criticisms. Players have giveaways. It's very rare to see a central midfielder complete 100% of his passes, even seemingly easy ones. Again, Bradley shouldn't have cheaply given away possession like that, but he's the only central midfielder in that formation. Giveaways will happen when there's no option to support him centrally. Aside from protecting Pulisic, a big reason why Bruce put in Dax McCarty in the game was to ensure that we keep possession. Diamond midfields are a novelty in today's game because the almost no manager wants to cede control over the center of the park.

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the MLS

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Bradley is usually too harshly criticized by casual socce fans.

Against Panama his positioning and leadership was outstanding, his tackling was good, but it was the worst I've seen him in terms of possession and touch, at least in the first half. Several unpressured cheap giveaways in our own half.

Can't have that against T and T. Just can't get concede a cheap goal. If no one is open just send it deep into the corner and let Wood/Altidore/Pulisic press

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Yedlin to Zusi can't have that much of a separation.

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Huh?

Zusi is only second to Wondo on the suck scale. Dude has never done anything worthy.

Bradley and Altidore.

That's unfair to Zusi. He was a good national team player around 2012-14. Had two assists in the World Cup. Never a world beater, but he's had a national team career he can look back on with pride.

I don't want him to start now, though. We are so much safer with Yedlin back there.

I think we should consider calling up Tyler Adams to back up Yedlin at the WC. Would also be a good option at CM.